The Firm Land
This film was made with the support of Hubert Bals fund, International Film Festival of Rotterdam and Fond Sud, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the CNC.
In a remote village by the Indian Ocean, struck by a deadly disease, a man comes from the sea, seeking the firm land…
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While death is lurking, the villagers decide to turn to the government for help. But as they feel unable to present their demand by themselves, some men are sent to the capital, with the mission of hiring mediators, “learned men” who could plead their cause with the administration. Lost in the big city, the countrymen cannot find any help and get into trouble…
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They are rescued by some street-boys who introduce them to a disillusioned former professor. The professor pushes the villagers to go and besiege the ministry themselves until they get heard… But they are turned down roughly by the administration.
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An old lady, a ruined and melancholy aristocrat, organizes a great feast for them… They sing, dance, talk about happiness and life… This story is a fable about the passing of time, the hopes of men, haunted by loneliness and death.
Participation in festivals
International Film Festival of Rotterdam (January 2009), Spectrum section
« Central to it are the corruption and bureaucracy of governments, but also a humane portrait of a large, vibrant Indian city. A bittersweet, romantic allegory, which aims to show the universality of the suffering of the poor all over the world, and the strength of the human spirit to transcend social and material circumstances. »
International Film Festival of Seattle
« Combining impish humor with visual poetry, Iran’s Chapour Haghighat introduces a clutch of intriguing characters before revealing how they fit into his story-within-a-story. A middle-aged man looks at the ocean, a young woman gazes into a mirror, and an old woman peers out her window. A traveling salesman arrives on the firm land of an unnamed Indian village where his conversation with a potential customer puts the characters into context. He tells of an incurable illness that the holy man blames on lust, so the spiritualist sends six good-hearted men to the city to seek a cure, a task that proves as absurd as it is insurmountable.
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Like the films of master Senegalese director and fellow novelist Ousmane Sembène, the France-based filmmaker Haghighat never tells the audience when he can show them with lucid visuals. He lambastes bureaucratic indifference (think the International Monetary Fund) at the same time he exalts the ability of these simple peasants, portrayed primarily by untrained professionals, to outsmart, or at least outlast, the worldly incompetents who stand in their way. Drunk on the art of storytelling, Haghighat imbues his parable with empathy, enchantment, and precious moments of grace. »
Museum of Modern Art of Newyork
" a quiet moral outrage and a compassionate understanding of human cruelty and folly—reminiscent of the films of Abderrahamane Sissako"
Film from the south festival (Oslo)
"A quietly effective, simply told parable of resistance to the heartlessness of the state, Chapour Haghighat’s “The Firm Land” celebrates traditional community values even as it records their decline. The helmer’s concern for the dispossessed, last evidenced in 2005’s “The Nightly Song of the Travelers,” is restated here in a warmly human item about villagers adrift in the big city that could find a foothold at the occasional fest.
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AIDS, though it is not named as such, has come to an Indian coastal community. Six men are chosen to go to the city to seek medical help, but are met there with indifference, apart from a group of boys, a professor and an elderly, ailing aristocrat — none of whom can help. The pic affectionately smiles at the group’s confusion while reminding that the human spirit can survive state attempts to suppress it, creating an air of gentle affirmation in the face of humiliation. Characterization is slim, with no one figure standing out, but this is presumably part of the pic’s message of brotherhood. Lensing wonderfully foregrounds the telling detail, particularly in the urban scenes."
Variety
19th FILMS FROM THE SOUTH FESTIVAL
Haghighat gives his film a documentary style, with amusing and to-the-point elements of a cinematic meta-perspective. This includes a use of self-reflexive devices like visible microphones and people addressing the camera, as if we are witnessing the news or an interactive documentary. Haghighat plays around with the medium, and also gives a cautious but comical comment on spectacular blockbusters from both Hollywood and Bollywood.
The Firm Land puts entirely different human and cinematic elements in the centre, and thus becomes a tender-hearted film about hope and warmth.